traumasurvivors:

“Please, Don’t Touch Me”

This is a phrase I find myself thinking frequently.

I don’t say it much anymore. Mostly because people have made me feel bad about it.

They’ve made me feel bad for having boundaries about my body and that isn’t okay.

Sometimes, they treat it as a joke. I ask them not to touch me and suddenly they’re laughing and poking me. “Like that?”

Yes. Like that. And it isn’t funny.

When I ask someone not to touch me, it isn’t anything personal and yet… most take it that way.

Sometimes they treat me like I’m a child and they tell me to quit being ridiculous.

More often than not, I’ve been told “I’m not hurting you.”

I’m very aware you’re not hurting me but you need to understand that there was a time when I told someone to stop and they didn’t. There was a time when I begged someone to get their hands off of me and they didn’t. I told them no and they still thought they had the right.

I’m a rape survivor. I’m also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. It’s taken me a long time to find my voice to express these boundaries.

Trust me when I tell you that I feel guilty when I ask someone not to touch me. I shouldn’t have to, but I do.

I try and force myself to stay quiet. I make myself uncomfortable trying to protect someone else’s feelings. That should not be the way it is.

If I ask you not to touch me… It isn’t personal. It isn’t a joke. I’m not being rude. I’m setting a boundary which is something I’ve struggled to do. Please respect it.

There are many reasons a person may not want to be touched. It doesn’t matter what those reasons are. If they ask you not to touch them, please let them have their voice and the respect they deserve. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a reassuring pat, hug or gentle poke. Please, don’t touch them.

Continuing my recent theme about lovers and casual touch it would be a dick move not to give time to the other side: boundaries and body autonomy.

I catch flack from time to time for saying that the pioneering activism and sometimes very harsh words from 70s feminists like Andrea Dworkin created the for the right to safely say “no” – to have people’s boundaries respected, especially women’s boundaries – created the possibility of a meaningful and enthusiastic “yes.”

Without acknowledgment and respect for boundaries, the remarkably wonderful sexual lives we’re able to enjoy today wouldn’t be possible.

More to the point, much of what still limits our abilities to enjoy rich and fulfilling sex lives is ongoing lack of respect for boundaries.

So for fuck’s sake, as @traumasurvivors puts it so well

There are many reasons a person may not want to be touched. It doesn’t matter what those reasons are. If they ask you not to touch them, please let them have their voice and the respect they deserve. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a reassuring pat, hug or gentle poke. Please, don’t touch them.

Crossing boundaries isn’t cute. It’s not fun.  Or funny.  It’s not friendly.  It’s not “sex positive.”  They don’t need to “lighten up.”  Even in a relationship.  Hell, even in a D/S, D/Lg, M/S, or TPE relationship!


Oh, and for the record I’m not saying this as some kind of detached angel of perfect boundary enlightenment. Because perfect? Hahahahaha no. ????  I say this as much to remind me as anybody else.  Because whatever my intentions might be I still need reminding too.